Public health in Ohio is currently in a real tizzy of proposed new rules concerning household sewage treatment systems. In Ohio, we have had a simple set of rules that a good many departments paid absolutely no attention to. One far the more egregious things that many locals did wrong was to discharge partially treated sewage effluent into road ditches, common tiles, ditches or just onto their neighbor's property. All of it perfectly illegal. But probably the biggest error of all was that most local health districts do not take household sewage disposal all that seriously. By that I mean that designing, approving and overseeing the installation of household sewage treatment devices is the lowest form of employment in their department. Small local health districts are plagued by shortage of resources (this means money!) to hire and train a person or persons to bring intelligent design (ooops!) to sewage treatment. The state health department said they could do nothing about the problem as they had no power to do so.
Now, a new state law has been passed that sets up a framework by which the state board of health (in Ohio, the Public Health Council) can adopt new rules. Many people from industry to Realtors and builders to local health districts worked many hours for over six months on the new rules. At last weeks Public Health Council Hearing, it seemed as if nobody like them! There were several folks who testified that life as we know it would cease to exist if the rules were passed; or that financial ruin would befall the entire state and its economy would collapse if they didn't allow sewage to be discharged into ditches.
Well, I have some sobering news for all of you. The old laws, the ones that are currently on the books, do not prohibit you from doing the right thing. Local health districts can adopt more stringent rules that the state's. The new law in HB 231 permits the same. Locals can ban off lot discharges of partially treated sewage. Even if they permit their installation, they can stop themselves from emptying discharges into anything but perennial streams. There is nothing I know of that can stop a local from hiring competent soils evaluators so that treatment systems can last the lifetime of the house without polluting of malfunctioning. Where will the resources come from? Simple. Charge fees. its always a value service when things work as they should. No one should have to have a lousy treatment system just because its cheap. Still need more money to run a good program due to economies of scale? There isn't anything in Ohio law that is stopping you from collaborating with neighboring health districts in order to make the numbers work. The only thing stopping you is the lack of will.
Its high time that locals stop trying to preserve the ways of the past simply because they don't wish to change. You can do the right thing with your local program.
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